In today's competitive marketplace, the costs for companies to create, maintain and grow new markets and market share is becoming increasingly expensive. As such, there is an increasing demand for technologies that provide a low cost means of ensuring that a company's (a “first company”) investment into a product and/or marketplace is protected against newcomers that may be attempting to get into that marketplace by following the lead of the first company. That is, there exists a need for companies to have a means of protecting the products they develop from being counterfeited and/or being undercut by newcomers who, by utilizing the research and development of the first company, can produce a counterfeit or cheaper product without the same degree of development work. In addition, it is also very important for the first company, who may also have invested substantially in the brand name and/or goodwill associated with a product to protect the brand name and/or goodwill and the associated revenue stream by reducing the ability of competitors to create and market products that provide similar or confusingly similar products that can be used with the first company's products.
The above is particularly important for companies selling consumable products and the case where a competitor may wish to sell a competing “re-fill” type product for use with a particular apparatus of the first company. For example, the first company may have developed a dispensing product that includes a dispensing apparatus that incorporates a consumable component in the form of a cartridge or other container. In this case, the consumable component is replaced at regular intervals after the consumable is used up and the first company looks to re-coop its development costs for the dispensing apparatus through the repeated sales of the consumable component. Often, a competitor will seek to undercut the pricing of the consumable component by producing an “unauthorized” consumable component that can be used with the first company's dispensing product without incurring the development costs of either the more expensive dispensing product and/or the consumable component. In the past, while there have been various solutions developed to make it more difficult for the competitor to successfully integrate an unauthorized consumable product with various dispensing apparatus, there continues to be a particular need for lower cost solutions that prevent the use of unauthorized products within certain apparatus in order to protect the brand name and/or revenue stream of the authorized product. In addition, a lower cost solution may expand the number of products in which an authentication process could be implemented between the different product pairs.
Past systems have included a variety of technologies that provide primary product/consumable product matching that limits or prevents the ability to use unauthorized consumable products with a primary product. Such technologies have included bar code systems, radio frequency identification systems and the like. While each of these technologies can be effective, as noted above, there continues to be a need for technologies providing a lower cost solution.
A review of the prior art indicates that the use of light-emitting diode (LED) transmitters and receivers have not been used in the past as a means for providing keying between primary product/consumable product pairs.
For example, US Patent Publication 2009/0177315 (Goeking) discloses a method of dispensing authorized product loaded into a dispenser by optically identifying a reference indication associated with the product. The reference indications include one or more marks that phosphorescence when in the presence of light from a light source.
US Patent Publication 2010/0147879 (Ophardt) discloses a replaceable keying component which includes a waveguide having a photochromic portion. Operation involves the input of electromagnetic radiation through one end of the waveguide and detecting electromagnetic radiation at the output of the waveguide to determine if the material contains one or more compatible photochromic compounds.
US Patent Publication 2010/0036528 (Minard) discloses a dispenser utilizing a control system that receives package-specific information via an optical scanner or a radio frequency sensor. The radio frequency sensor is included in a data input system employing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Radio scanners receive and analyze the radio signals emitted by an RFID tag.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,844 (Perrin) discloses a system for controlling a dispensing apparatus with one or more illumination sources and one or more optical sensors along with a control circuit. The control circuit responds to at least one of the optical sensors to initiate dispensing of the material. The control circuit is designed to actuate a dispensing appliance from above when a container is presented directly below an outlet.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,621,426 (Reynolds) discloses a system for dispensing product by utilizing an electronically powered key device and/or identification code from an authenticated refill container. The system utilizes a near field frequency response to determine the compatibility of the refill container.
US Patent Publication 2009/0276091 (Duha) discloses an apparatus for analyzing readable tags to ensure the use of authenticated paint in paint dispensers.